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The
SUPERNATURAL P o w e r of a TRANSFORMED Mind ACCESS to a LIFE of MIRACLES
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The
SUPERNATURAL P o w e r of a TRANSFORMED Mind ACCESS to a LIFE of MIRACLES
BY BILL JOHNSON
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© Copyright 2005—Bill Johnson All rights reserved. This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request. Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Please note that Destiny Image’s publishing style capitalizes certain pronouns in Scripture that refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and may differ from some Bible publishers’ styles. Take note that the name satan and related names are not capitalized. We choose not to acknowledge him, even to the point of violating grammatical rules. Destiny Image® Publishers, Inc. P.O. Box 310 Shippensburg, PA 17257-0310 “Speaking to the Purposes of God for This Generation and for the Generations to Come” ISBN 0-7684-2252-3 For Worldwide Distribution Printed in the U.S.A. This book and all other Destiny Image, Revival Press, MercyPlace, Fresh Bread, Destiny Image Fiction, and Treasure House books are available at Christian bookstores and distributors worldwide. 5 6 7 8 9 10 / 09 08 07 06 For a U.S. bookstore nearest you, call 1-800-722-6774. For more information on foreign distributors, call 717-532-3040. Or reach us on the Internet:
www.destinyimage.com
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D EDICATION I dedicate this book to my dad, M. Earl Johnson, who went home to be with Jesus in January of 2004. He was and is my hero. His dignity in life was only surpassed by his dignity in death. The integrity that he showed in his public ministry was the same integrity he displayed at home. He walked in humility in the midst of opposition, and never bowed to the fear of man. He was ultimately a worshiper. As such he valued the Presence of God more than the favor of man. Yet, he was highly favored, and rightly so. He was a true general in the army of God—and my greatest encourager. “I love you Dad, and miss you very, very much. I am running with my spiritual inheritance, and will be faithful to your legacy.”
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A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS Joel Kilpatrick — Thanks for taking my transcripts and making them worthy of print. “You are wonderful!” Lance Wallnau — Your comments on “Desire” and “Colaboring” made a noticeable impact, and appear in this book. Thanks. Judy Franklin, my administrative assistant — Thanks for your great encouragement, faithful service, and wonderful advice. (Also, thanks for helping me find the right “gates.”) Special thanks to my staff — You are the most amazing group of revivalists I have ever known. Only eternity will reveal the full impact of your sacrificial lifestyle. I live in your debt. My children, Eric & Candace, Brian & Jenn, and Gabriel & Leah — Thank you for faithfully running with your spiritual inheritance. May you truly build your floor upon my ceiling, and train my grandchildren to do the same. I love you MASSIVE!
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And finally to my mom — “Dad’s greatness was only equaled by your own. Thanks for demonstrating the value of family, excellence, and beauty, and insisting that I write. I love you.”
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E NDORSEMENTS This book will rock your boat and set you ablaze with world-changing faith! Lethal! Dangerous in the hands of believing believers—the contents of this book could start another reformation—or even greater! Shake off doubt and unbelief and take the plunge into a life of supernatural activity all centered around a supernatural God! James W. Goll Encounters Network Author, The Seer, Wasted on Jesus, and The Lost Art of Intercession Radical lovers of God hunger to experience the fullness of who He is. Bill Johnson’s book, The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind leads us into a glorious participation in the divine nature. He brilliantly demonstrates that becoming colaborers with our Beloved Lord is our divine destiny. If you long to see His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, Bill’s book will be a powerful inspiring guide. Heidi G. Baker, Ph.D. Director & Founder of Iris Ministries Co-Author, There’s Always Enough International Conference Speaker
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“Bill—I had a chance to go over in detail your two books (The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind and When Heaven Invades Earth). Rare stuff that encourages me to no end. Yes, we are seriously damaged if we are not intensely, utterly set on receiving all the grace that our God has for us—and it’s already paid for... In these last days I’m setting my hope in Jesus on not being a part of the usual cycles of church history during which revival comes and then goes again. Let’s never look back, and may God graciously allow us to build on all that has been poured out already. You are a key part of what He is doing in the world. Rolland Baker, Ph.D. Director & Founder of Iris Ministries Co-Author, There’s Always Enough International Conference Speaker Only a man who lives and moves in the presence of the God of revelation could write this book. And those who read it will find that same revelation flowing out from them into the streets and beyond—to the next generation. The reformation that Bill Johnson started with his first book is sure to be accelerated with this one. We recommend it with all our hearts. Wesley and Stacey Campbell Founders—Be A Hero Producers and Authors of Praying the Bible Bill’s teaching presents some of the most revelatory insights I’ve heard. The material in this book challenges me to go higher. Kingdom mindsets are important in ministering the Kingdom of God. The Bible is clear: as a man “thinks in His heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7). If you want to cultivate kingdom
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thinking and have God’s Kingdom become a greater reality in your life, this new book is a must read. Todd Bentley Evangelist/Revivalist Founder of Fresh Fire Ministries Bill Johnson’s The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind is key to the issue of advancing God’s Kingdom on the earth. It is filled with deep personal insights from one of the leading teachers and visionaries in the church today. Equally contagious is Bill’s passion to see God’s will done in us as it is done in heaven. A must read for those desiring to live in the dunamis power of a transformed mind. Larry Randolph International Conference Speaker Author, User Friendly Prophecy Wow! This book takes us to another level. Not only does God want to have His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, but He wants to do it through us. Bill Johnson does a wonderful job in this second book in laying out God’s plan to transform our minds in order that we will become kingdom minded to exhibit the realm of God’s miraculous power into a desperate world. This book will not only deliver you but will empower you through God to deliver them. Cal Pierce Director, Healing Rooms Ministries Spokane, Washington International Conference Speaker It has been said that a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. There are many who preach the present reality of the Kingdom with scriptural accuracy but
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remain experientially sterile. Bill Johnson’s provocative perspective on the Kingdom of God will teach you to see what you believe rather than believing what you see. Randall Worley Headwaters Ministries The “Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation” is upon Bill’s new book, The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind. This is a must read for everyone who desires to walk in the supernatural. Che Ahn Senior Pastor, Harvest Rock, Pasadena, CA Founder and President of Harvest International Ministries Author and International Conference Speaker Bill Johnson has once again given us a gift. With skillful use of pen and paper he takes us into a rarely visited inner world, the mind of a miracle worker. Bill has the unique ability to make the supernatural life seem so natural that unbelief in any form looks like an absurdity. This second book in his series on the supernatural abounds with gems and insights that collectively form a framework to train and renew the mind to take on the limitless possibilities of the mind of Christ. When enough people live with the mentality Bill describes, a collective tipping point will occur in one generation and the realm of healings and miracles will be as easy to access as the new birth is today. Lance Wallnau President of the Lance Learning Group
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C ONTENTS
Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Dedication Acknowledgements Endorsements Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Foreword—Dick Mills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Foreword—Randy Clark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Foreword—Jack Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Change Your Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Becoming the Dwelling Place of God . . . . . . 53 Revelation and Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Understanding Is an Experience . . . . . . . . . . 79 Becoming Students of Miracles . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Guilt-Free and Forgiven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Remembering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Enduring Uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Learning From Your Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Dreaming With God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Inheriting the Supernatural. . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
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F ORE WORD Bill Johnson is doing a follow-up of his first book, “When Heaven Invades Earth.” Bill’s words are, “This book captures the new things I have learned in the years since the first book was written. It explores areas I had not conceived of. Bill producing this inspirationally challenging book is in illustrious company. Saint Peter wrote two books: I and II Peter. The second book was a follow up of the first book with much more added information. Luke wrote two books. The first one was one of the four Gospels, “St. Luke’s Gospel.” The second book Luke authored was, “The Book of Acts.” It was a continuum of the Gospel story. Paul wrote two letters to Timothy. Paul also wrote two letters to the believers in Thessalonica and two letters to the believer’s in Corinth. All these letters were included in the 66 books of the Bible. In II Corinthians 1:15, Paul told them he planned on visiting them and conferring on them a “second benefit” or a “second blessing” (Berkeley Bible). I’ve read the manuscript to Bill’s new book and believe Bill is in the good company of Peter, Luke, and Paul who also wrote second books. Just as Paul brought a second blessing to the Corinthians, Bill Johnson’s, The Supernatural Power of a 17
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Transformed Mind, will give a “second” blessing to those who have read the first book. You’ll be doubly blessed reading the part on co-laboring. Chapter 10 is titled, “Dreaming with God,” and chapter 11 shares, “Inheriting the Supernatural.” Both chapters were informative, innovative and instructing. In areas where I had been “waiting for the Lord to move,” Isaiah 30:18 reminds us that the Lord is waiting for us. Bill’s book enables you to discover how to step into the stream of God’s unlimited blessing and become a part of the on-going supernatural works of God. I was able to share with Pastor Bill a Greek word found in Ephesians 4:23, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” The Greek word for renewed is ANANEOO (ann-ann-neh-oh’oh). The word for renewed is a compound Greek word ANA, meaning to repeat or doing over again, and NEOS which means: “youthful, young.” You can interpret, “Renewed in the spirit of your mind,” as “Think young.” Reading Bill Johnson’s new book is spiritually invigorating and rejuvenating. Read it and you’ll end up “thinking young.” The very antithesis to, “stale, dry, arid, tasteless religious rhetoric.” Think young! Dick Mills International Conference Speaker Author, God’s Word For You and Marriage Bliss
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F ORE WORD Bill Johnson is a man of God who enjoys God and who is living what he writes. He is a man who has revelation into who we are in Christ and its ramifications that is definitely outside the box of traditional thinking, but not outside Scripture. His new book helps us deal with the promises of the Bible in a spiritual manner that isn’t limited by the traditions and human rationalisms that have reduced God to a “god made in our image.” Bill’s love of the word of God is apparent in The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind, but it is equally true that Bill has a great love for the Spirit of God and for experiencing all that is promised in the Bible. There is a noticeable increase in Bill’s authority and understanding of spiritual realms, especially in regard to healing over the past few years that I have known him. I love to spend time with him because of his great hunger to learn and experience more of the promises of God in his life and church. The latter chapters of the book especially call us out into a greater experience of co-laboring with God, greater than many of us were ever taught in Bible college and seminary was possible. I couldn’t help but think of the similarity between the latter chapters of his book and the recent comments of Dr. 19
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Charles Kraft, which I believe he also states in his recent book Confronting Powerless Christianity. Dr. Kraft believes it is a principle of the spiritual world that both the devil and God have need of finding a person through whom they must work in agreement to accomplish their desires. Now, I know that God is sovereign, but in His sovereignty He can freely choose to work in this manner if it so pleases him. However, Bill goes even farther in his understanding of God’s heart to co-labor with us. He goes beyond God looking for someone with whom to partner to carry out His will to God wanting to partner to carry out his adopted son or daughter’s will or desire. Of course Bill indicates that this is only after the person has been born again and is delighting themselves in God. The implications of this principle were powerfully illustrated, especially in regard to Christian businesspeople. This book is needed in this hour as a wake-up call to the “greater things than these shall you do” promise of Jesus. Bill’s message regarding the Kingdom of God is important for the time in which we live. Jesus didn’t say that he was not going to return until the “gospel” was preached in all nations, he said he wasn’t going to return until the “gospel of the Kingdom” is preached to all nations. What Bill and I mean by this distinction is that for too long many have limited this promise of Jesus to preaching of forgiveness through grace while not including the other aspects of the Kingdom message, especially the aspects of healing and deliverance. If it was true in Paul’s day that we can have many teachers, but few fathers, it is truer today. Bill Johnson, his family, and his church are presenting a new model of ministry. Not the ministry of the professional minister, but the ministry of one who is intentionally becoming a “father” to many. Not just his family, church, and those who are a part of his School of the Supernatural, but now through his writings, conferences, and itinerate ministry he is becoming a “father” to many others. 20
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FOREWORD This is an awesome book that will be added to my list of most important books for my interns to read, and for the students who will become part of the new missions school God has called us to start. I highly recommend it to all who want to be encouraged in their faith and in their relationship with God. Randy Clark Global Awakening Ministries International Conference Speaker Author, God Can Use Little ol’ Me
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F ORE WORD The operations of personal faith, though initiated by the Spirit of God in the human spirit, must be released with the permission of the mind. Therefore the mind must be transformed from the earthly, natural, and reasonable thinking that holds faith back to heavenly thinking that releases us to Kingdom living. The Kingdom of God is infinite and encompassing and the mind of man is challenged to “repent because the Kingdom of God is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). This challenge is a mandate to accept the eternal and infinite rule of God over everyone and everything for time and eternity. Nothing will deliver us from little thinking like the Kingdom of God. Bill Johnson has done it again in lining up our human thinking with the mind of God and shocking us with the distance between the two. A short while ago I wrote a commendation to Bill’s first book, When Heaven Invades Earth, a scintillating challenge to Kingdom thinking with a report of repeated and continuing demonstrations of God’s power documenting the results. Here in this book with the equally appealing title, The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind, the author takes us to the next level of Kingdom thinking. After reading the first few 23
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pages I began to wonder what my life and ministry might have been had I been challenged with this information over half a century ago. I was discomforted by that line of thought, knowing that I could not go back and start over. After reading the next few pages I began to dream excitedly about what life and ministry are going to be because I have heard and seen what Bill Johnson so powerfully presents. This is not a book of theories about the reach of human abilities but a presentation of the mind and heart of God that is now working signs and wonders among His people. Sound bites hammer at the reader’s heart, presenting the gladdening possibility of immediate change. Reports encourage the mind to believe that what we have only read about in the Bible or heard reported from distant days, is really happening today. Here are a few of those sound bites: “Most Christians have repented enough to get forgiven but not enough to see the Kingdom.” Ouch! Wow! Repentance is associated in most of our minds with misery and regret; repentance unto “Kingdom vision” is encouraging and energizing! “If your encounters with God don’t leave you with more questions than when you started, then you have had an inferior encounter.” Yes! Aren’t you weary of the boredom that gathers around low expectations? “The normal Christian life is perfectly poised between what we presently understand and the unfolding revelation that comes from the realm of mystery.” Here we are challenged to “move on”! “Large numbers of Christians are practical atheists who disbelieve in an active God.” We refuse to say in our churches today that there is no God but by our actions we are saying, “There is no God like the God of the Bible, nor do we want such a God!” Finally Bill asks, “Aren’t you weary of talking about a Gospel of power and seeing no demonstrations of it?” 24
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FOREWORD Yes, Bill we are, we really are! And you have helped us by causing us discomfort with status quo and pointing to the way of repentance to Kingdom thinking. The reading of this book may be dangerous to your present lifestyle but may become the most life-changing book you have read this year…or, for that matter, this decade. Enjoy the journey! Jack R. Taylor, President Dimensions Ministries Melbourne, FL Author, The Key to Triumphant Living and The Word of God with Power
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I NTR ODUCTION This book is an attempt to address a very abused subject —the mind of the believer. On one hand the mind has been cast off by some creating a mindless gospel that is emotionalism at best, and cultic at worst. They delight themselves in doing things without reason, thinking that only then is God pleased by their great faith. On the other hand there are those who have elevated the mind above its rightful place, creating gospel that has reduced God to the powerless image of man. This group lives in the illusion that they are spiritually safe because they only accept the things they understand, raising carnal Christianity to an elite status. They unknowingly embrace the very deception they hoped to avoid. The challenge before us is to give ourselves completely to the full purpose of God for the mind of man through the model that Jesus gave us, thereby giving us access to His supernatural life style. I have purposed to use every message, whether spoken or in print, to sow into the coming reformation. That is my cause —that the kingdoms of this world would become the kingdoms of our Lord. This book is intended to be one small step in that direction. 27
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This book is a continuation of my first book, When Heaven Invades Earth. You do not have to read that one to benefit from this one, although it is recommended.
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CHAPTER 1
C HANGE Y OUR M IND It is unnatural for a Christian to not have an appetite for the impossible. It had been an awesome Sunday night in the presence of God. When it was all finished—the prayer and praise, the teaching and the time of asking God for miracles—one of my staff members walked from the sanctuary into the hallway and saw a man jumping up and down saying, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” His pants seemed too big for him—he was holding them up so they wouldn’t slump around his ankles. He was puzzled, but knew God must have done something. When we asked around we learned that the man had been healed that night after receiving prayer. The tumors he’d come in with had instantly disappeared. He’d come all the way from a neighboring state because doctors had given him only two weeks to live. In his mind, we were his last stop on the way to heaven or on the way to a miracle. He came into the sanctuary where he continued to jump up and down with great joy, very much healed and very much in need of a new wardrobe. How did it happen? The Kingdom of God had come crashing into his infirmity and overwhelmed it. It was another great night and another great victory over the enemy. 29
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That same weekend a woman drove to our church from two states away because she was having difficulty breathing. The doctors had found what they believed was lung cancer. Her family had to help her into the building. After receiving prayer, she left pain-free, able to breathe without any restriction. Again, Kingdom reality vanquished earthly affliction.
A N EW NORM … Is that normal? Absolutely! But is it common in today’s church? Not yet. But God is changing the way Christians think about the so-called impossible. He is teaching us to work handin-hand with the Kingdom so the reality of heaven comes crashing into earthly problems and overwhelms them. The results are astonishing miracles, great victories over the enemy, healing, deliverance, revelation, and more. It’s not hype; it’s not baseless hope or theory. It’s fact. The two stories I shared above are actual situations in which affliction was completely vanquished by Kingdom reality, and there are many more I will share throughout this book. Many churches see the miraculous happen on a weekly, even a daily, basis. As you can imagine, it’s a revolutionary approach to Christian living—a return to the authentic. I wish I could say I have always lived in the everyday miraculous, but I haven’t. I’ve been a pastor for decades, but I didn’t see miracles for most of that time. I believed in healing and deliverance, but neither I nor the people I led prayed for them with any success. We had correct doctrine, but not correct practice. However, a number of years ago God began to take us on a journey, giving us fresh Kingdom eyes to see what normal Christian living ought to be. Having missed much of the main activity of the Kingdom for so long, we were eager to get back to the original plan of God on this earth. It has been a wonderful learning experience! 30
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CHANGE YOUR MIND
THE WILL
OF
GOD REALIZED …
I have come to see that the normal Christian life means miracles, spiritual intervention, and revelation. It means peace, joy, love, a sense of well-being and purpose1—all these traits that elude so many Christians. Written into the spiritual DNA of every believer is an appetite for the impossible that cannot be ignored or wished away. The Holy Spirit, the very Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, lives in us, making it impossible for us to be content with what we can only see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Our hearts know there is much more to life than what we perceive with our senses; we are spiritually agitated by the lack of connection with the realm of the supernatural. In the end, nothing satisfies the heart of the Christian like seeing so-called impossibilities bow their knees to the name of Jesus. Anything less than this is abnormal and unfulfilling. Bad teaching and disappointment have robbed many people of this reality. But in these last days the Man of Understanding2— Jesus Christ, our Wisdom3—is drawing the deep things out of the hearts of His people, bringing them into the open. These things are the irrevocable callings of God.4 We live in an unprecedented hour where people are hungering for and stepping into their destiny in great numbers, fulfilling the purpose of God for mankind on earth. It’s an amazing, unprecedented time to be alive, and you and I get to be part of it! To be effective believers, we must go well beyond the Christian life we have known. We must redefine “normal” Christianity so it lines up with God’s idea of normal, not the definition we have accepted and grown accustomed to based on our experiences (or lack thereof). The normal Christian life begins with the realization that we were put here to do the will of God on earth as it is in heaven—and what a joy it is to participate in that. The problem I see as I travel and speak 31
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with other believers is that many people are confused about the will of God on earth. Like me, they’ve often heard people use the phrase “the will of God” in Christian circles, but the concept remained fuzzy and vague. For most of my life I have heard people talk about seeking the will of God for their church, or their personal life, or their career. Many of us have treated the will of God as if it’s unknown or unknowable. Sincere believers might pray for days and weeks, looking more somber and beat-up all the time, and they’ll tell you they’re trying to find the will of God on a matter. I have done this, too! But the will of God is simpler and plainer than we have thought. In what is known as the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said clearly and concisely: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9-10). The will of God is simply this: “On earth as it is in heaven.” Isn’t that basic? Isn’t it refreshing? When we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” we’re praying for the King’s dominion and will to be realized right here, right now. That is a life-transforming, paradigm-shattering way to “do” normal Christianity. God has not kept His desires secret: He wants the reality of heaven to invade this rebel-torn world, to transform it, to bring it under His headship. What is free to operate in heaven—joy, peace, wisdom, health, wholeness, and all the other good promises we read about in the Bible— should be free to operate here on this planet, in your home, your church, your business, and your school. What is not free to operate there—sickness, disease, spiritual bondage, and sin—should not be free to operate here, period. That, in a nutshell, is our assignment as believers on earth, and that is what my church and certainly many others in the Body of 32
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CHANGE YOUR MIND Christ are working toward with more focus and energy than ever before. We are out to destroy the works of the devil.5 It’s an awesome way to live! When we make this our primary understanding of God’s will, the other areas that trouble us so much will seem to sort themselves out.6 What happens when we make this our mission? Lives are set free, bodies are restored, darkness lifts from people’s minds, the rule of the enemy is pushed back in every way imaginable. Businesses grow healthy, relationships flower again, people re-connect with their calling and purpose in life, churches grow, and cities feel the effects of having the Kingdom flourishing within them. Energy is freed up for Kingdom works in ways I have never seen before. Things happen regularly that are so extraordinary it’s like stepping into the pages of a good novel. But it’s not a made-up lifestyle; it’s the lifestyle for which we were made.
A PRACTICAL INVASION… A young man named Brandon, who is a graduate of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry7, was visiting friends in Washington State. They were at a restaurant and the waitress came to take their order. Brandon began to perceive things in his heart about the woman, and he shared them with her. They pertained to her relationship with her mother. The waitress was amazed, and she became so emotional that she had to take a break. While the waitress was away, Brandon noticed an Asian couple staring at him from across the room. The woman had wrist braces on because she suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome, and one of her hands was completely frozen in a fist. Brandon walked over and asked if he could pray for her. She said that they were Buddhist, but they were willing to receive 33
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prayer. He prayed for her and she was healed on the spot. The whole family was instantly overjoyed and began praising Jesus, right at their table. They said they had been praying to their ancestors for a long time for her hands to be healed, but the prayers hadn’t worked. Brandon explained who Jesus is, and they received the gospel with wonder and thankfulness. He went back to his table and for the rest of the evening, the healed woman sat there opening and closing her hand in amazement. About that time, the waitress came back and asked if she could talk with Brandon outside. She was understandably confused and yet eager, and wanted to know more about God. Brandon shared further insight that the Holy Spirit gave him about her life and told her about Jesus’ love. She gave her heart to the Lord and was filled with the Holy Spirit right there. She was breathless with excitement and declared she was going to tell all of her friends what had happened. That sounds like something out of the Bible, but it is another very recent display of God’s love from a normal Christian like you and me. It happens regularly to a whole company of believers. He simply made himself available to carry out God’s will in the here and now. He didn’t just share doctrine; he offered proof of who God is.
PROVING
THE
WILL
OF
GOD …
One of the major functions of miracles and supernatural living is to offer immediate, irrefutable proof of what God wants to happen on earth. It demonstrates who God is by showing what His reality looks like. The apostle Paul put it this way, And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is 34
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CHANGE YOUR MIND that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2, emphasis mine). Has it ever occurred to you that one of your jobs on earth is, like Brandon, to prove the will of God? To show other people what He is like? To allow Him to overwhelm the enemy’s works through you? Most people don’t know how God behaves, or what’s inside His heart for each one of us. Your calling and my calling as believers may be too massive to fully understand, but the Bible’s command is clear: Our job is to demonstrate that the reality that exists in heaven can be manifested right here, right now. We are not just to be people who believe the right things about God, but people who put the will of God on display, expressing it and causing others to realize, “Oh, so that’s what God is like.” Healing and deliverance and restoration do much more than solve the immediate problem; they give people a concrete demonstration of who God is. One young man from our church was summoned for jury duty. I doubt they’ll ever ask him again! While he was serving, a gang member got saved and three people were healed, one of them in front of a mocking crowd. This young man had so boasted in the Lord that many of the other jurors were publicly making fun of him. So he turned to an afflicted person, prayed, and the person was healed. The crowd went silent. Another man in a wheelchair stood before the people in the courthouse, moving his hands and displaying the healing power and love of Jesus Christ. Some of our staff, along with students from our ministry school, have gone a number of times to a nearby university that is a major center of New Age spiritualism. The most popular religion on campus is witchcraft. My senior associate, a wonderfully anointed prophet of God, was invited to speak in a class on Christianity and the supernatural. He stood before the students and shared a brief testimony. At the end of the 35
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class a young lady who was tormented by demons began to manifest under their influence. Kris commanded them to leave, and she was delivered in front of many wide-eyed students! She was then filled with so much joy that they had to carry her out of the classroom into the parking lot so the next class could begin. The students from both classes looked on at what was happening, stunned and dumbfounded. My associate began to call people out, pointing at them and speaking strong prophetic words into their lives that touched the secret things of their hearts. Some dropped to the floor instantly as if they’d lost their strength. Others sat there with their mouths gaping. “I saw you being dedicated to God,” he told one young man who was the only unbeliever in a large family. And on it went until those witches and warlocks who had devoted their lives to the powers of hell knew there was a mighty God in Israel, and in the Church! During worship one morning at our church, a woman who had esophageal cancer felt the fire of God come upon her. She turned to her husband and said, “God healed me.” They went to the doctor and the doctor said, “This kind doesn’t go away.” But he examined her anyway and told her in complete astonishment, “Not only is it gone, you have a brand new esophagus.” During another service we were reading the Bible, and a man in the congregation suddenly couldn’t see the words clearly. Everything went blurry. He didn’t figure out why until he got home and took off his glasses and could see fine without them. God healed his vision without anyone praying for him. The same thing happened to a pastor at a conference who was enjoying the presence of God, and when he opened his eyes, he didn’t need his glasses anymore. 36
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CHANGE YOUR MIND
RETURNING
TO
OUR PRIMARY MISSION …
Those are great examples of carrying out our original calling as human beings. Remember that God’s first commission to mankind was, Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Genesis 1:28). He said those words to Adam and Eve so they would extend the boundaries of His garden—representing His government, His will—to the ends of the earth. His idea was to have a planet engulfed in His glorious rule, with mankind flawlessly “proving the will of God” on earth as it is in heaven. It is a beautiful, breathtaking picture, and it remains God’s goal for you and me, for the Church and for all of mankind. God has never wavered in what He wants for this planet and from you and me. Of course, we know that the original plan got derailed, and that Adam forfeited the rulership God gave him over the earth, putting humanity into slavery to the enemy. Paul wrote, You are that one’s slaves whom you obey… (Romans 6:16). But God had a plan of redemption in place: Jesus would come to reclaim all that was lost. God told the evil one, And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel (Genesis 3:15). When that prophecy was fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God took back the authority man had given away and reclaimed our purpose on this earth. He gave us a clear field to run toward the original goal—and run with 37
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all our might. We, the Church, are called to extend His rule in this earthly sphere, just as Adam was called to do. We see this in each commission shown in the gospel: the commission of the 12, the commission of the 70 and the 72, and the Great Commission.8 God gave the same instructions: In essence, “Go heal the sick, preach the good news, demonstrate who I am and what I am like. Extend My Kingdom!” But too few of us today follow those precise instructions. We get caught up in side arguments, intellectual skirmishes, theories, and emotional head-trips. We become enamored of our own talents and spiritual giftings, thinking we can direct our own course simply by putting our gifts and talents to use as we see fit. Though well-intentioned, we become self-appointed in our commissions, honestly believing we are submitting to God. In reality, it isn’t possible to prove the will of God on earth as it is in heaven unless we are completely plugged into the primary mission God gave us. We put it this way: There is no CO-missioning without SUB-mission to the primary mission. So what is the primary mission? We saw it before in the life of Jesus and in the testimony of Scripture. First John 3:8 states clearly that through intimacy with God, we are to destroy the works of the devil. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8b). That was Jesus’ assignment; it was Adam and Eve’s assignment; it was the disciples’ assignment. Believers, that is your assignment as well. God’s purpose in saving you was not simply to rescue you and let you keep busy until He shipped you off to heaven. His purpose was much bigger, much more stunning: He commissioned you to demonstrate the will of God, “on earth as it is in heaven,” transforming this planet into a place radiant and saturated with His power and presence. This is 38
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CHANGE YOUR MIND the very backbone of the Great Commission, and it should define your life and mine.
BRINGING CONFLICT
TO THE
STREETS…
In our school of ministry we train people in signs and wonders, and are especially keen to learn how to operate in the supernatural outside the four walls of the church. We encourage our students by giving them specific assignments to invite God to work in public places. One day after class a bunch of students from our Worship School went to visit a lady in the hospital. She had a brain tumor, was deaf in one ear, and was losing feeling on the right side of her body. She spoke with great difficulty, slurring her words, and she was in terrible pain. Instead of laying hands on her and praying, the students surrounded her in worship, singing songs, expressing their love to the Lord. Pretty soon the woman said, “My ears opened!” The deafness had left. They kept singing and she said, “My speech is clearer!” She started speaking clearly. Pretty soon she was moving her limbs around. She exclaimed, “All the pain is gone!” God overhauled her body when a worship service broke out around her. When we do the will of God, we bring Kingdom reality crashing into the works of the devil. We initiate conflict between earthly reality and heavenly reality, becoming the bridge and connection point that makes it possible through prayer and radical obedience to assert the rulership of God. Not long ago, a woman with a broken arm came to our church with her wrist in such pain that we couldn’t even touch her skin to pray for it. We held our hands away and prayed, and within moments God healed it completely. She had no pain and was twisting the wrist all around. The arm was totally different than it had been seconds earlier. Kingdom reality had 39
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overwhelmed one of the devil’s works. That’s the normal Christian life I’m talking about. Some of our local church leaders had a Native American reconciliation event and many more people showed up than were expected. We only had four salmon to feed about 900 people. But those four salmon fed everybody full to the brim, with leftovers! That’s not possible in the natural, but it is in the normal Christian life. Besides the weekly feeding of the poor, we have an annual holiday feast, in which families from the church adopt a table in our gym and decorate it with Christmas decorations. The tables are set with our finest china, crystal, and silverware. We then bus the needy to this event held in their honor. This past year we served prime rib. We started with 34 roasts to feed two seatings of about 500 people each. After serving 19 roasts in the first seating we realized that the 15 we had left were not enough for the 200 workers plus the second group of 500. The decision was made to not feed the workers. But when they went back into the kitchen there were 22. Seven more had mysteriously appeared. The workers were then fed, as was the second group of needy people. That should have exhausted our mysterious 22 roasts, but there were 12 more left after everyone had eaten! Multiplying bread is great, but I really like seeing prime rib multiply! Aren’t you tired of talking about a gospel of power, but never seeing it in action? Aren’t you tired of trying to carry out the Great Commission without offering proof that the Kingdom works? Too many of us have been like a vacuum cleaner salesman who comes to the door and throws a handful of dirt in on the floor and says, “I represent the new Whiz Bang vacuum cleaner company. My vacuum cleaner is so strong that you have to remove pets and small children from the room. It sucks up everything in sight.” But instead of 40
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CHANGE YOUR MIND demonstrating the vacuum cleaner he simply hands you a brochure (tract), promises that the machine will work, and walks away. That’s cheating people! Yet that’s often how we preach the gospel. We tell people how great the product is, but seldom demonstrate or prove it. It’s like saying, “Hi! My name is Bill Johnson. I represent the King and His Kingdom. He heals all your diseases, delivers you from all your torments, and gets rid of the messes in your life. I can’t show you how, though. You’ll just have to believe it. So long.” Don’t you think we have improperly defined how the Kingdom of God operates, missing the bulk of what Jesus taught? Some people teach that the Kingdom of God is for some time in the distant future or past, not here and now. Some consign all the promises of God in the Bible to the millennium or to eternity because the accepted wisdom is that we’re going to barely make heaven. But Jesus taught and demonstrated that the Kingdom of God is a present-tense reality— it exists now in the invisible realm and is superior to everything in the visible realm. In the same way that Jesus is fully God and fully man, so the Kingdom is fully now and fully then. He spent His ministry showing us how to bring Kingdom power to bear on the works of the devil. Our ministry should do the same. We can’t be self-commissioned, relying on our ministry gifts to carry out the Great Commission. We can’t afford to work apart from the supernatural intervention of Kingdom reality. Our assignment has never been about what we can do for God, but what can God do through us. That is the essence of the gospel: to do exactly what Jesus did and destroy the works of the devil. That is normal Christianity. Miracles are normal. Salvation and deliverance are normal. Revelation, prophetic insight, and words of knowledge are normal. But to return to 41
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that original mission, we must radically change the way we think. We must repent and renew our minds.
RENEWING
THE
MIND …
The only way to consistently do Kingdom works is to view reality from God’s perspective. That’s what the Bible means when it talks about renewing our minds. The battle is in the mind. The mind is the essential tool in bringing Kingdom reality to the problems and crisis people face. God has made it to be the gatekeeper of the supernatural. To be of any use to the Kingdom, our minds must be transformed. We find a clue to what that word means in the transfiguration of Jesus when He talked with Moses and Elijah. The reality of heaven radiated through Jesus, and He shone with incredible brilliance. His body revealed the reality of another world. The word transformed in that passage is the same word we find in Romans 12:2. The renewed mind, then, reflects the reality of another world in the same way Jesus shone with heaven’s brilliance. It’s not just that our thoughts are different, but that our way of thinking is transformed because we think from a different reality—from heaven toward earth! That is the transformed perspective. The renewed mind enables His co-laborers to prove the will of God. We prove the will of God when put on display the reality of heaven. The unrenewed mind, on the other hand, brings about a completely different manifestation: Hear, O earth! Behold, I will certainly bring calamity on this people—The fruit of their thoughts, because they have not heeded My words nor My law, but rejected it ( Jeremiah 6:19). I understand that there is often hesitancy when we talk about the mind as a tool of God. At times in church history the intellectual aspect of the mind has been so exalted that it 42
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CHANGE YOUR MIND has wiped out a real lifestyle of faith. Men of sincere faith have been lured into a mindset of skepticism and doubt. Theology has been exalted at the expense of belief. Academic assessment has replaced firsthand, supernatural experience. There is good reason not to let the mind dictate how we will believe. But Christians often react to error and create another error in the process. Pentecostals have often downplayed the mind’s importance, implying that it has no value at all. Many Christians instinctively distrust the mind, thinking it is irredeemably corrupt and humanistic. They point to Harvard and Yale and other universities that were originally founded on Christian principles, but which today promulgate deceptions and lies. However, the mind is actually a powerful instrument of the Spirit of God. He made it to be the gatekeeper of Kingdom activity on earth. The great tragedy when a mind goes astray is that God’s freedom to establish His will on earth is limited. The mind is not to be tossed out; it is to be used for its original purpose. If the mind weren’t vitally important to our walk with Christ and our commission, Paul wouldn’t have urged us to “be transformed by the renewing of our minds.” In fact, only a renewed mind can consistently bring Kingdom reality to earth. Yet many of us live with unrenewed minds, which are of little use to God. An unrenewed mind is like a discordant key on a piano. Once you discover that key, you don’t use it anymore because it detracts from the music. You skip over it and work around it. In the same way, people who are out of sync with the mind of Christ seldom get used, no matter how available they are, because their thoughts conflict with the mind of Christ. They are self-appointed in their mission and are not in submission to the primary mission. As a result, they are working entirely outside God’s intended commission. 43
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However, when we come into agreement with the primary mission, our minds become powerful tools in God’s hands. This explains why there is such an intense war being waged for your mind and your mental agreement. Every thought and action in your life speaks of allegiance to God or to satan. Both are empowered by your agreement. Renewing your mind means learning to recognize what comes from hell, and what comes from heaven, and agreeing with heaven. That is the only way you will complete your divine assignment. God designed your mind to be one of the most supernaturally powerful tools in the universe, but it needs to be sanctified and yielded to the Holy Spirit so you can carry out His designs, creative ideas, and plans in your everyday life.
REPENTANCE MADE PRACTICAL … Renewing the mind begins with repentance. That is the gateway to return to our original assignment on earth. Jesus said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”9 To many Christians, repent10 refers to having an altar call where people come forward and weep at the altar and get right with God. That is a legitimate expression of repentance, but it’s not what the word repentance means. “Re” means to go back. “Pent” is like the penthouse, the top floor of a building. Repent, then, means to go back to God’s perspective on reality. And in that perspective there is a renewal, a reformation that affects our intellect, our emotions, and every part of our lives. Without repentance we remain locked into carnal ways of thinking. When the Bible speaks of carnality, it doesn’t necessarily mean obvious, disgusting sin. Most Christians have no appetite for sin; they don’t want to get drunk or sleep around, but because they live without the demonstrated power of the gospel, many have lost their sense of purpose and gone back to sin. Having a renewed mind is often not an issue of whether 44
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CHANGE YOUR MIND or not someone is going to heaven, but of how much of heaven he or she wants in his or her life right now. Jesus urged us to do an about-face in our approach to reality because His Kingdom is at hand. He brought His world with Him, and it’s within our reach. He wants you to see reality from God’s perspective, to learn to live from His world toward the visible world. But if you don’t change the way you think, you’ll never be able to apprehend the Kingdom power that is available. Jesus said that “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” ( John 3:3). What does that mean? Well, Jesus was not saying that we would have visions of heaven, though I know that happens. He was speaking more practically. He was saying that when our minds are renewed, we will see the Kingdom displayed and proven as He did in His earthly ministry. That’s what it means to “see” the Kingdom of heaven. Our souls long to see such things. We have inside of us an unrelenting hunger to watch the Kingdom break into this realm—and not just to watch but to participate, to become the connecting point and gateway for God’s power. I walked into church one recent Sunday morning, greeting people before the meeting, and in the back I met a homeless gentleman who’d come as a guest of someone else. He had a cast on his arm and was treating it with great care. So I said, “Hey, what happened to your arm?” He said, “I fell off a 20-foot bridge and shattered my wrist.” “How about if we pray for that?” I asked. “Okay,” he replied. We prayed and I told him, “Now move it around.” He moved it and his jaw dropped. He looked in complete astonishment at the lady who brought him because he had been completely healed in a moment of time. His wrist was 45
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fine. When the invitation came for people to give their lives to Christ later in the service, he was the first to come forward. Once again we see that “His kindness leads us to repentance.”11 That is a simple, everyday example of proving that the Kingdom works on earth. It is not mind-over-matter, or something spooky and weird. It is going back to God’s perspective of reality and living as if we really believe it. His purpose—His reality—is to raise up a delegated group of people who work with Him to destroy the works of the devil, who demonstrate and prove the will of God here on earth as it is in heaven. That is the core of the Great Commission, and it is your privilege and mine to co-labor with Him in it.
PAUL ’S REPENTANCE … Most Christians have repented enough to be forgiven, but not enough to see the Kingdom. They go part of the way, then stop. Did you know that meeting Jesus was only the first step in your Christian walk? Conversion puts you at the entrance of an entirely new way of living, but there is a lifetime of experiences beyond the entrance that many folks don’t experience. They never enter into their full purpose. They spend their life rejoicing just on the other side of the river shore, but never move in to take the cities and inhabit the promised land. It’s not enough to barely make it across the river into the promised land; we must go all the way and fight for the territory God has promised to His Church.12 Life is so much fun when we experience the miraculous and partner with the supernatural! It’s an honor and privilege and responsibility that too many of us have feared and ignored. The idea of Kingdom power and spiritual conflict unsettles some people, but without power, the gospel is not good news. Jesus never made the gospel simply a doctrinal exercise. That’s why Paul was so concerned about properly presenting 46
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CHANGE YOUR MIND the gospel that he changed his way of doing ministry between one assignment and the next. You recall he was in Athens, preaching the gospel at Mars Hill where philosophers gathered to talk. They loved to exchange ideas and debate intellectual ideas of the day, but their talks were mostly meaningless and void of power or truth. Paul came into their midst and gave a brilliant message that is honored to this day by Bible schools around the world for its conciseness.13 Then he gave an opportunity for people to come and to meet Jesus—and only a small handful of people got saved. What a disappointment! This was, after all, the apostle Paul, who stirred up entire cities with the message and power of God, who was tossed in jail for disturbing the peace. Later, in Ephesus, the city was absolutely turned upside-down by his teaching and the demonstration of God’s power. All the occult practitioners brought their piles of books and burned them spontaneously. There was massive repentance. Paul had also been to the third heaven, the realm of God, had seen things unutterable and impossible to describe. But when he went before this group of intellectuals and presented the gospel in a superbly intellectual way, there were very few converts. In fact, Acts 18:1 says, “After these things Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth.” If Paul was like any other preacher I know, he had his share of blue Mondays where he rehearsed and re-evaluated the Sunday service a thousand times over, trying to figure out what he could have done better. As Paul was coming to Corinth, I believe he was evaluating his message, which was brilliant but had produced few converts. Looking ahead, he knew he would be preaching the gospel in Corinth. At this point, he actually described what he was thinking: And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony 47
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of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). Some read this and conclude that Paul had a speech impediment or difficulty talking or lacked confidence before the crowds. I would suggest that it’s none of those things. I think he was saying, “I ran an experiment with you. I decided not to tell you everything I knew because I wanted to make sure this time to leave room for the power of God. I didn’t want you to put your faith in another man’s gift. I didn’t want you to be wowed by my words.” Rather, as he said in verse 5, people’s faith “should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (I’m not saying that we shouldn’t strive to teach well, or share in fullness the things that God has shown us. It’s just that we shouldn’t do any of these things at the expense of making room for God to show up and say “Amen” to His own word through the signs and wonders that follow.) Notice that Paul didn’t write, “I wanted your faith to be in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” He used the phrase, “That your faith…[would be] in the power of God.” Today there is a difference between preaching in Jesus’ name and preaching with power. In Paul’s day there was seldom a difference. Power was part and parcel of the gospel, as it should be for us in our everyday lives. Many of us have preached in the name of Jesus without any demonstration of power. That kind of powerless, ineffective preaching must stop. We can’t afford to give the theory without the reality anymore. In fact, if Paul were on earth today he would warn against many of us because 48
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CHANGE YOUR MIND of how we rob the gospel of power. In First Corinthians 4:19-20, Paul warned new Christians against teachers who didn’t demonstrate the power of God with their teaching. He was making a vital distinction; fathers move in power. Those who have only concepts and ideas are not presenting the full message of the gospel. The gospel was presented in its wholeness, of course, in the life of Jesus who taught with power. Whenever He taught on the Kingdom, He would heal people. It wasn’t one or the other; it was both. He told His disciples, “And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons” (Matt. 10:7-8). He showed us that proving the will of God means not only declaring the Kingdom is at hand, but demonstrating its effects. A woman came to our church recently who had been in an accident and had five surgeries in just under five years. One of her arms was almost three inches shorter than the other, and she had no feeling in it from the elbow up. The doctor told her the damage was so extensive that the arm would dangle there the rest of her life. At the encouragement of her children, she came up for prayer. A woman laid hands on her, and the arm was healed and restored in a moment of time. Why? Because there are no arms like that in heaven. That infirmity had to leave because the Kingdom came upon her. She reached out to pick up her two-year-old girl, and the girl said, “No, Mommy, broken arm.” “It’s okay, honey,” the woman said. She picked her up, and there was a huge smile plastered on the girl’s face—because for the first time in her life, her mommy was able to pick her up. That’s the normal Christian life. In the New Testament, the very word for salvation means healing, deliverance, and forgiveness of sin. The Kingdom 49
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brings the complete solution to the whole man, and we have access to that reality even now, just as Jesus did throughout His life. Many believers think miracles and power are for extraspecial anointed people of God. Many get hung up on the idea that Jesus did miracles as God, not man. In reality, as I said in my previous book14 and I continue to remind people, Jesus had no ability to heal the sick. He couldn’t cast out devils, and He had no ability to raise the dead. He said of Himself in John 5:19, “the Son can do nothing of Himself.” He had set aside His divinity. He did miracles as man in right relationship with God because He was setting forth a model for us, something for us to follow. If He did miracles as God, we would all be extremely impressed, but we would have no compulsion to emulate Him. But when we see that God has commissioned us to do what Jesus did—and more—then we realize that He put self-imposed restrictions on Himself to show us we could do it, too. Jesus so emptied Himself that He was incapable of doing what was required of Him by the Father—without the Father’s help. That is the nature of our call—it requires more than we are capable of. When we stick to doing only the stuff we can do, we are not involved in the call. Jesus lived in constant confrontation and conflict with the world around Him, because Kingdom logic goes against carnal logic. This is a good time to ask yourself, are you living in conflict with this world? Are you bringing the reality of heaven, not just the doctrine of heaven, to your neighbors or coworkers? How is your life contradicting the way life works for most people in your city? How are you ushering in Kingdom reality wherever you go? A renewed mind sees the way God sees. It receives His impressions and becomes a creative force to release His expression of dominion on planet Earth. 50
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CHANGE YOUR MIND A renewed mind destroys the works of the devil so that earthly reality matches heavenly reality. It proves the will of God not just in word but in deed. It heals the sick, frees those enslaved to sin, brings joy where there was sadness, strength where there was weakness, explosive creativity and world-changing ideas and inventions where there was lack of invention. It causes the Kingdom of God to be expressed “on earth as it is in heaven.” That’s normal Christian living. And that’s what we’ll discuss in the coming chapters.
ENDNOTES 1.This does not mean there will not be troubles and persecutions. Those are also a part of the Christian life, as mentioned in the great chapter of faith: Hebrews 11. But even in those difficult times, which are the result of living righteous in an unrighteous world, enduring faith “overcomes the world.” 2. Proverbs 20:5. 3. 1 Corinthians 1:30. 4. Romans 11:29. 5. 1 John 3:8. 6. Matthew 6:33. 7. This is our school to train people in the Christian lifestyle of the supernatural. Character/holiness is the bedrock of our training, yet we refuse to stop there. 8. Matthew 10, Luke 10, Matthew 28:18-20, respectively. 9. Matthew 4:17. 10. While this is not the actual etymological breakdown of the word, it does convey the principle the word represents. 11. Romans 2:4. 12. Exodus 23 and Joshua 1. 13. Acts 17. 14. When Heaven Invades Earth. 51